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Dessert

Spiced Mountain Cake

A spiced cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, sweet milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, baking powder, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Mountain Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the yolks of the eggs and mix in the sugar and butter until creamy.

  3. Add the sweet milk, cinnamon, and grated nutmeg; mix well.

  4. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the wet mixture.

  6. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into jelly cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Let cool, then spread with icing.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks enrich the batter, while whipped whites lighten it and help it rise.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, browned crust.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the cake rise and become light.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and helps hydrate the flour for a smooth batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring vigorously or letting them deflate before baking knocks out that air, leaving a denser, flatter cake.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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